Medicina Comunitária e Educação em Saúde

Abstrato

Socio-Demographic Features and Breast Feeding Profile of Mothers Attending Teaching Hospital in Gujarat State, India

Mamtarani, B. Divakar and Ratan K. Srivastava

Objective: To relate the socio-demographic profile of mothers with their breast feeding practices.
Design: Hospital based cross sectional study.
Setting: Urban tertiary care teaching hospital.
Methods: A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used. The information was collected by using interview
technique. Study was carried out from June 2005 to October 2005 in a tertiary care hospital. In the hospital 991 women
availed the services during study period and 600 (60.5%) of them were covered in this study. These women were
interviewed after the delivery in the hospital during postnatal period. Details of their socio-demographic features and
breast feeding profile were collected.
Ethical concern: No ethical issues were involved.
Data analysis: The data were analysed with the help of EpiInfo software (version. 3.2). Proportions & frequencies
were calculated by doing bivariate analysis.
Results: A total of 600 women were covered of those women 309 (51.5%) were young <25 years, 345 (57.5%)
mothers were literate and 537 (89.5%) mothers gave colostrum to their babies. Prelacteal feed was given by 205
(34.2%) of mothers in the present study.
Conclusion: The observations of the study will help in understanding the current breast feeding practices of mothers attending hospital